"Well--I saw it--_one_ Sunday, anyway," answered Ally, with the air of one who had never been anywhere else all his life. "What was it like, Ally dear?" asked the mother. "Like heaven, mother, if the angels had only been there." {66} "Angels!" said I contemptuously. "Pretty place to find angels, in Mike Maloney's shanty! Why, it's like a stable." Again Ally's eyes went up to the ceiling, and, while his fingers nervously played an invisible organ on the coverlet, he began to sing, so plaintively and sadly that it quite unmanned me: "He came down to earth from heaven, Who is God and Lord of all, And his shelter was a stable, And his cradle was a stall. With the poor, and mean, and lowly, Lived on earth our Saviour holy." The widow and I stood watching and listening long after he had ceased singing. In a few moments a lucid interval occurred, and, noticing me, he said: "Doctor, why can't we have Mass in our church? Oh! wouldn't I like to play the organ for it always till I died!" "We couldn't have Mass, Ally," I replied, "because it is only Catholic priests who can say Mass." "Is it? I know I'd like to play the organ forever and ever for the Mass; but I'd rather be a priest. Oh! a thousand, thousand times rather!" And his pale, sad face lighted up with an unearthly glow. Seeing I could not divert his mind from the subject, and fearing to continue a conversation which excited him so much, I quietly gave directions to his mother, and left. I had little hopes of Ally's recovery, but his words made a deep impression on my mind: "_God will not let me die till I know what is true, first_." "What truth can he mean?" thought I. "Can he have imagined he does not know the true religion? What can have made him think that our Episcopal Church is not true? What strange fancies will get into some children's heads! I should be sorry to lose Ally, but I'd rather see him die, I think, than grow up to be a Roman Catholic. Ugh! and a priest too, perhaps, who knows? God forbid!" Revolving these disagreeable thoughts in my head as I went down the street, I met Mr. Billups, our minister. We shook hands, or rather I shook Mr. Billups's hand while he shook his head, a manner of his that gave him a general doubting air, somewhat puzzling to strangers. "Mr. Billups," said I, "do you know that Ally Button is ill?" "No, I did not hear it," he replied, emphasizing the word _did_, as much as to say, "But I hear it now." Although the negative accompaniment with his head would seem to imply that he did not quite believe it. "Yes, and very ill too," I added. "If his mind becomes calmer than it is, I think it might do good just to drop in and see him. I fear he has been under some bad influences lately." "You astonish me, not to say grieve me," rejoined Mr. Billups. "Ally was always a good, pious boy, and one of our head boys, as you are aware, in the Sunday-school."